The Experiment
by ElegantButler
Summary: Bryce volunteers to aid Ovu-Vat in a new biological experiment.
1. Chapter 1

MAX HEADROOM

The Experiment

"What did you want to see me about?" Bryce asked as he walked into the old lab at Ovu-Vat.

"As you know, the gro-bags project did have some setbacks after Mr. Carter's interview. However we are beginning to recover from that unfortunate incident. We've recently managed to make enough funds to proceed with another project. That of allowing men to carry gro-bags inside of themselves."

"Why?" Bryce asked, a bit mystified by the idea.

"We wish to give homosexual couples the same experience of pregnancy which heterosexual couples share. The only problem is that we need a volunteer. Someone who can be trusted to responsibly write down the effects on the body in a logical and scientific manner. You're known for being very thorough in your research and I think we can trust you in this matter."

Bryce was rather flattered by this remark, but one thing did turn him off.

"So, I get to carry some stranger's kid inside my body. Will it be still and sleeping or do they move around?"

"They are known to move about quite a bit," the older man explained. "And we'd never ask you to carry a stranger's child. It will be Edison Carter's."

"I agree," Bryce agreed. He wasn't sure why the fact that it was Edison's child made such a difference, but for some reason it did.

It was a few days later, on Friday afternoon, that he was called back to Ovu Vat for his surgery. It was after work and as he was back at Network 23 on Sunday morning none of the others on Edison's team even were aware that he'd been away from the Network.

There was not a lot of news that Edison found interesting for the next couple of weeks, which was fine by Bryce. He had his own problems, the worst of which was morning sickness. The gro-bag, it had been explained, had been set up so that it had three sides rather than four. This would allow his own abdominal wall to form the fourth side so that a placenta could attach itself to his body, allowing the baby to feed until it was ready to be born.

"I hope this won't last for the entire time," Bryce remarked as he wrote in the baby journal he was keeping about the . "If it does, I will have to talk to them about reconsidering the feeding method. That has to be the cause of…" he put the journal down and raced to the bathroom, reaching the toilet just in time for another round of vomiting.

While he'd been writing in the journal, Theora had been talking to Edison about some news she had recently heard from her friend.

"She says that Ovu-Vat has started a new project," she had said. "They're experimenting with male pregnancy."

"Playing God again," Edison remarked. "I'll have Bryce look into it."

He headed up to Bryce's studio, walking in just in time to hear Bryce throwing up in the bathroom.

"You okay?" he asked as Bryce emerged. He could see Bryce looked rather pale.

"Fine," Bryce told him.

"I heard about Ovu-Vat's new experiment," Edison said. He noticed that Bryce turned very white when he mentioned it and paused. Was it possible? "Bryce? Are you…?"

"Am I what?" Bryce asked, almost challengingly.

Edison shook his head. "Never mind. Do you think there's any validity in Ovu-Vat's male pregnancy experiment?"

"There could be if its handled correctly," Bryce told Edison.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

When Edison had first wanted to ask Bryce if the young genius was pregnant, he had decided not to. He had been sure that Bryce was smart enough not to involve himself physically in such a dangerous experiment. Now, about a month later, he was no longer sure. Bryce hadn't been himself lately and it worried him.

"I thought Bryce was going to bite my head off," he told Theora and Murray during their lunch break.

"He has been a bit moody as of late," Murray agreed. "Any idea why?"

"I think he's pregnant," Edison told them.

"You think he volunteered for Ovu-Vat's experiment?" Theora asked. "Have you asked him?"

"No," Edison admitted. "He's touchy at the most innocuous topics these days."

"I'll speak to him," Murray decided, standing up and leaving his salad where it sat.

When Murray got to Bryce's studio, he found Bryce sitting on the edge of his bed, crying into his hands. Not used to seeing such raw emotion from the normally ultra-scientific teenager, Murray was frozen in place for a moment. Then he sat down next to the boy and put his arm around his shoulders in what he hoped Bryce would see as a friendly or even fatherly gesture.

"What's wrong?"

"I must be stupid," Bryce sniffled wiping his eyes on his sleeve. "None of my experiments are turning out right today. I know there are no failures… just more data… and all that. But it's frustrating!"

"Maybe you're having problems with the little experiments because you're mind is so focused on the big one?" Murray suggested.

Bryce stared at him with wide eyes. Did Murray know about his condition?

"Yes, we know. Or at least we suspect," he said. "Are you?"

"If you mean pregnant, then the answer is yes."

"Jesus wept," Murray muttered as he shook his head.

"It's my body," Bryce argued. "I know what I'm doing."

"Do you really?" Murray asked. "How can you possibly know what you're doing if this is something nobody has ever done before?"

"I'm having a baby," Bryce said. "Lots of people have had babies. It's not that hard."

"Correction," Murray said. "Lots of women have had babies. No man has ever done it before. Except in movies and that's almost always done as a comedyy. You have no idea what this will do to your body. Or if you're even capable of sustaining it to term. It takes nine months to-"

"Three," Bryce told him.

"Three? They're accelerating it?"

"Just mine," Bryce assured him. "They're in a hurry to get this project off the road. But according to the research data I've been sending them, my pregnancy is identical to any woman's except it's going to be a bit shorter. What do you think of Dana?"

"Who?"

"It's a name I'm thinking of for my baby. It can be either a girl's or a boy's."

"Fine," Murray said, distractedly. "But maybe you should let the parents decide."

"I am one of the parents," Bryce pointed out.

"You're not seriously thinking of keeping it!" Murray exclaimed.

"What else would I do? It's my baby!" Bryce looked incredulously at Murray.

"I would think you would do the responsible thing and find an adoptive family for it," Murray told him.

"Give my baby to a complete stranger! Are you insane?!"

"Well, since you're having it with a complete stranger…"

"I am not having a baby with a stranger!" Bryce shouted at Murray. "I happens to be Edison's! And I'm not surrendering custody to him either! Just leave, I want to try and salvage this latest project I've been working on."

Bryce threw himself back into his work while Murray returned to the control room. Lunch was over at this point, and he was sure that his salad had probably been thrown out by now. As it was, he wasn't very hungry any more.

Edison's child! If word got out that a teenager was carrying Edison's kid, it could mean the end of the "What I Want To Know Show". Even that teenager was a boy and it was a part of a sexless experiment. The story had to be suppressed. And Edison had to be informed. Bryce might be a genius when it came to science and technology. But he was a babe in the woods when it came to raising children.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3:

Murray had decided not to tell Edison that he was the baby's father. He knew if he had it would cause a problem in his team that he was not willing to put up with. Besides, he had reasoned, it was Bryce's job to tell Edison. If he wanted to tell him.

The lack of that knowledge did not stop Edison from deciding to have his own little child with Bryce about the baby.

"Just don't mention giving it up," Murray said. "He refuses to even think of such an idea."

"He probably figures the kid will be a genius," Theora told them. "I bet he thinks that nobody else will ever understand the child the way he can."

"That's the point," Edison told her. "He won't be able to understand the kid. Not just because of the baby talk. But because each generation has it's own way of communicating, the music, the slang, even the body language changes. I just wish we could convince him that it's not as easy as he believes it will be."

"I think I'll have him spend a long weekend with my brother," Theora suggested. "Give him a little dose of reality. If he still thinks he wants to raise a baby after helping Winnie and Shawn out with their baby for three days in a row then I'll accept that he probably is."

"That sounds acceptable to me," Edison agreed.

Theora went to Bryce's studio to talk to him about the idea. When she got inside she found Bryce lying in bed. He was still in his pajamas which meant he had not got out of bed that morning. He was gasping for breath, his stomach very swollen from his pregnancy and Theora guessed that his insides were being crushed by the growing child.

She ran to the vu-phone and contacted the med center. Then she went over to Bryce and took his hand. "We'll get you to the hospital," she told him.

"Baby…." Bryce managed to say somehow.

Theora knew what he was trying to say. He didn't want to go. He didn't want them to end this pregnancy

"I'll tell them you want to keep the baby," she told him. "Maybe they'll just shift it around a little to lessen the pressure."

Edison, on his way to cover a story, spotted the ambulance and saw the paramedics bringing Bryce out on a stretcher.

"What happened?"

"The baby grew too much all at once, I think," Theora told him as he joined her in her pickup. "He was barely breathing when I found him."

Edison felt terrible. Even though he hadn't thought of Bryce as being a very good parent at this stage of his life, the idea of him suffering such a loss was heartbreaking to him.

They ran inside when they got to the medical center.

Theora filled out Bryce's information while Edison tried to find a doctor who would give him any information about the young genius.

"He's already in surgery," Theora told him when she joined in. "They said the doctors are aware of his condition and they're going to do what they can to save them both."


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Though the surgery was over early that evening, Bryce did not awaken until late the following afternoon. As soon as he was awake, he knew that something was very wrong. It didn't take him long to realize what the problem was.

He was no longer pregnant.

He tried to remember what he'd been doing. He'd gone to bed. Yes. Then what? He didn't remember getting up. He hadn't been sick when he'd got into bed. So why was he in hospital? What had happened to the baby.

He remembered his conversation with Murray. The man had had doubts about his abilities as a parent. That had to be the explanation. Murray or Edison must have talked the doctors into ending the pregnancy.

Bryce would never forgive them.

A nurse peeked in. And when she saw that he was awake, she went and fetched the doctor.

"How do you feel, young man?" the white-haired gentleman asked kindly.

"How am I supposed to feel?" Bryce snapped. "You killed my baby without even asking how I felt about it! You just listened to some old bald fool who had no right to even …" he turned away in disgust. "Just get out."

"We didn't kill you baby, " the doctor corrected him. "The baby was already dead when we began the surgery. You friend, and she's hardly bald, found you in bed in respiratory distress. You couldn't breathe because the baby you were carrying was crushing your lungs. We were going to try to reposition it, but when we went to do so, we discovered that the rapidity of its growth had caused it to suffer internal organ damage. There was no way to save it."


End file.
